Category Archives: Story Times

Well hey, blog I haven’t touched in forever. How you doin’? I was looking through a different failed project and found this little diddy that I feel I need to reread over an over again so I don’t work myself to the point of this sickness again. I hope to be back in the blogging game for starting this month. There’s a lot to be said 🙂 Enjoy!

Proof that I am alive ft. my Doggo and Bunny Filter Abby

Having a doctor tell me that I need to actually rest for a few days is one of the worst things. I have stuff to do. I was supposed to teach 10 lessons today. I still ended up going to Black Box rehearsal tonight, even though my parents were very much against it. There are just certain things you have to do, right?

Okay, it’s not one of the worst things ever. Being prescribed laziness for a few days is probably what I need. BUT OH MY WORD, I HATE BEING LAZY. Letting my body heal is important, but I just wish I could wave a magic wand and make it all better. Or if Bear would just tell me where that stupid time machine was, I could jump ahead to the “after” point of this sickness.

Literally, it feels like someone is tap dancing in my head. Maybe Maren got bored of my kitchen and decided to shrink down and tap dance on my brain. It’s to the point where my brain is so tired that I feel asleep, didn’t finish my train of thought, and decided to finish this page even though it’s the next day because I’m stubborn.

This honestly is the best week for me to be sick. I don’t HAVE to teach (even though I really want to because money), and classes don’t start until next Tuesday. There have been times where friends have told me to learn to “go with the flow” and just let things happen at times. It can be hard having easy going friends at times, because they function better when there aren’t plans. I, on the other hand, need plans to function properly. It just how I’m wired. So, when something like this happens and I am in a position where I can’t have plans, it’s very weird.

You know what the weirdest thing about congestion is? When you’re so stuffed up in your ears that you can’t balance well. Like, God wired our bodies in a way that if one thing is off, it throws off the whole production. Ah, look at that, I’ve just confirmed the body of Christ. If one person is off their game, it can affect the other people around them that make up the Body. Neat how spiritual revelations can come like that.

Being forced to lay around is a good time. Being forced to lay around is a good time. Being forced to lay around is a good time. The more I say it to myself, the more I begin to believe it. I guess I have to look at it from the perspective that my body is a temple for the Holy Spirit. I don’t think a temple should have snot all over the walls of it. In order to make it a place that is good for God to dwell in me, I need to take care of it and let it repair itself. Ha, that’s kind of a funny mental picture. Picture this: little men like the ones who worked in the temples in Jesus’s time going around my sinuses wiping off the gunk. Then there are a few others laying out blankets on my brain in hopes that I’ll fall asleep. Plus, there are a few others sending the vitamins and medicine I’ve taken to different parts of my body to try and heal it.

I’m glad God gave us a sense of humor. Some of us are gifted with more of it than others, but I’m glad that He created an overall idea of humor for us to enjoy, even when we feel like crap.

As craziness has begun to settle around the Wolff Household, I have finally been able to sit down and process the experiences that I had while in Romania. There are so many stories I could tell about this trip, and this one was probably one of my favorite moments from my time over seas.

The city we spent the most time in is called Serverin. During our second day of ministry, we served at our host missionary’s church: painting rooms in their family home, playing games with kids at the church’s carnival, and attending the evening church service. It had been a very eventful day, including:

*Learning that Logan isn’t the greatest painter ever

*Eating baked Chocolate Banana Boats (the best dessert ever invented)

*Watching Alishia get painted by two very artistic kiddos

*Hearing a mandolin orchestra play worship songs

* Getting to share bible stories with the help of very awesome translators (shout out to Sammy who helped me, even when I said Lazarus raised Jesus from the dead)

Thanks for translating, Sammy!

After the church service, we got ready to load the bus to head into the city for dinner before going back to our hotel. I ran to the bathroom to change into different clothes, where I saw two girls, Dariah and Ava, washing their faces off. They were big fans of the face paint (and were the two that had painted Alishia). Before I could slip into one of the stalls, Dariah came up to me, holding one of the face painting pallets. Not knowing any English, she pointed to her cheek. I quickly painted a heart, with Ava leaning over my shoulder to see what I was doing. Once I finished my work, I pointed to the mirror and gave her a thumbs-up to get her approval.

Ava and Dariah

To my slight disappointment, she shook her head. She then pointed to her forehead, nose, chin, and other cheek, and Ava laughed and laughed. One heart was not good enough, no sir! You have to have five to complete the look! As I was finishing my masterpiece, some of my friends went in and out, trying to stifle laughs at the ridiculous sight of me face-painting in a church bathroom, but I was having fun, and so were the girls (even though I really wanted to change my jeans and had to go).

Once Dariah was done, she pulled Ava in front of me, and pointed to all five spots on her face again. I did the same paint job, and afterwords, she ran out of the bathroom, looking for her mother. Dariah stayed behind though, and pointed to my wrist. I have a habit of drawing a little cross on my wrist; it’s a tattoo I want to get someday. She said the word for “Christ” in Romanian, and used some of the green face paint to add a tint of color over it. She then tried to draw a few lines on my palm with the green, but it wasn’t showing up very well. I took my black pen out of my pocket and handed it to her. After redirecting her from drawing on my face, she drew a little snowflake on my wrist, saying “Elsa” once she was done. Frozen creates international connections. I hugged her goodbye and joined my group on the bus, treasuring that special time.

Ava ran off before I got a good selfie with the two of them 😛

While sitting on the bus on the way to get dinner, I thought about how special kids are. It’s amazing to get to connect with kids, especially in a different country where you can’t even understand their language. It was almost shocking to me how trusting they were of us. They had never met us. They had no idea what our lives were like. They had no reason to love us. But they did. Oh my goodness, these kids knew how to love. It was like how God loves us. We gave God absolutely no reason to love us. In fact, we were His enemy. But because of His amazing love, He sent Jesus to build a bridge for us to be able to live in His perfect love. This trip made me better understand the unconditional love that God has for us, and to be able to see the attribute of God being reflected through the people we met was life changing.

Our team went to try and be a blessing to the people of Romania, but in truth, I feel like they were more of a blessing to us. I’m so thankful for the huge moments that God revealed Himself, and for the little, precious memories that I will keep in my heart forever. And, in case you were wondering, no, I never did get a chance to change my jeans 😛

My cross, Dariah’s snowflake, and a leftover Batman symbol. Reminders of a great day in Severin 🙂

I am now in full swing at school, which means homework. It’s not super terrible stuff, but my literature class takes a little bit more time than other classes have in the past. So, today, I did my homework in the office of the art lab, planning to print it out there so that I wouldn’t have to worry about it at home. Well, due to the the annoying fact that school computers are the not the most reliable machines to store homework on, when I went to the library to print it out, the file was gone. Nowhere to be found, even though I saved it three times. Needless to say, I was a little less than thrilled.

Obviously, there’s a chance that I made a mistake when I was trying to save the file, but this isn’t the first time this has happened to me at school. Also,saving files is a habit now. I’ve been doing it since elementary school. It’s been engraved into my brain for the last ten years how to save a Word document, so I don’t know how I screwed it up on the computer at my college. Due to the file running away at school, I had to come home and redo the work, which was frustrating, since I had spent an hour and a half at school getting it done the first time. It’s done and printed out, ready for my class tomorrow morning, but as I reflect on the day, I have come to some conclusions.

My day was pretty swell up until 4:30 when the fiasco with my homework happened. On Mondays and Wednesdays, I have two art classes, and it’s wonderful. I had worked on two projects that day in Design and Painting, and had gotten some really great feedback from my teachers.

“After Paris” My line project for Design Project

“Peach and Flower Still Life” WIP of my first oil painting

I let lost homework almost ruin my entire day. Something that took me only 30 minutes to redo almost messed up six hours of awesome studio time and meeting new people. Often times, I let little things screw up the good things that are going on in my life, and that’s something I’m working hard to fix.

Sometimes, things go wrong. It’s inevitable. But the way that we choose to handle those situations is up to us. God doesn’t ever give us anything that we can’t handle, and through the sucky times in life, He is always there to carry us through them. He cares about every part of our lives, and He wants to helps us through our trails, even if they are smaller ones, like having to redo homework. He doesn’t get mad when we get upset, in fact, those are the times when we can draw closer to Him.

So, what have I learned from today?

I need to put a flash drive on my lanyard and use it all the time.

I need to take my laptop with me to school to avoid the school PCs.

Having to redo homework is not the end of the world (even though it really sucks)

Until next time,

Abby

Isaiah 41:10: Fear not, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you in my righteous right hand.

Everyone has dreams and goals. Some are smaller, like learning to juggle or beating a really tough level on a video game. Others are larger, like finishing college with honors or back packing through Europe for a summer. Dreams are awesome, and goals drive us to work harder to achieve them. Even though they may seem like something that we could never reach, we still have them in our heads, and imagine what it would be like if they really came true.

Meet Suz.

I’ve known Suz for about six years now, and she has come to be the big sister I never had. She’s one of those people that can light up a room and makes you feel special. At the age of 16, she started college at a school three hours away from home after being homeschooled her whole life. She has gone on a mission trip to Japan, ministering through musical theater, something that she has been doing for years, someday wants to return. Suz is one of the most godly women I have ever met, and one of the most driven people I know. She is also one of the biggest Disney Nerds I have ever met.

Tomorrow, she will be on her way to the Disney College Program in Orlando to work as a Character Actor at Disney World. Working for Disney has been one of Suz’s dreams for a very long time, and now, she’s getting to live out that dream. But she wouldn’t have gotten to start this adventure if she hadn’t done some work to get there. She had to have good grades throughout college, go through a long application process, and then attend an eight hour audition to be a character. Plus, she has to pack up her life and move across the country and not come home until January.

Dreams are great, but dreams don’t come true just by wishing. Most of the time, you have to work hard to reach them(just ask Princess Tiana).

But hard work shouldn’t scare you off from what you want to do, especially when you feel that it is your calling. A lot of the times, it’s going to be rough getting to the finish line, but you shouldn’t give up on your dreams just because it’s too hard, or it’s not “practical”. God didn’t make us to be lazy and just float through life; He made us to thrive.

With anything you do, use it to serve God and others. You were made for incredible things, so don’t be afraid to chase after your dreams. It may take a lot of work, and it may take longer than you want it too, but the end game will be worth it. It’s hard to see her leave, but I am so happy that my friend is getting to do what she’s wanted to do for such a long time. Suz, I wish you the best as you travel to Disney World and start this new phase in your life, and I can’t wait to see what you do down there. Thanks for being such a great role model and being the sister I always wanted 🙂

This past Thursday, I was the banner carrier for my branch of local colleges at their graduation ceremony. Along with four other people who weren’t graduating this year, we represented our respective schools while our peers graduated. I had to be at the auditorium at 10am to “rehearse”, and was stuck there for two hours. After that whole ordeal, I went to lunch with my CAB adviser and two guys who are very chatty about college plans. While I love talking to people, the best part of my day were the next two hours.

My dad works right down the street from where I had lunch, so instead of my mom having to drive up again to get me, he picked me up and I went back to his office. We hung out for a little while, but since he had a meeting, I ended up walking over to the shopping center across the street. It’s super cool how you can get there; the city has a bunch of “links” between buildings so that you can walk from place to place above the traffic. I wandered around the different levels for the next few hours, visiting a few of my favorites: the Crayola Store, the fudge factory and a really neat boutique that has a lot of artsy clothing. My final stop was on the third floor, which had a really cool coffee bar.

After looking over the menu, I went up to order. Apparently, the espresso machine wasn’t working, because my first two orders were not availble. The girl who was taking my order looked like I was going to yell at her or something, but I got a regular cup of coffee and all was good. I parked myself at the bar and started sketching. I like my coffee super blonde, so I asked for an extra cup of cream. Not really paying attention, I didn’t realize that my phone was in the way of the girl putting the cup of cream on my side of the counter. Neither one of us was able to see it until it was too late; the little cup spilled all over my place mat, phone cased and sketch book. At this point, the barista looked like she was going to cry. She was apologizing profusely, trying to wipe up as much as she could. Now, some people might have freaked out at her, especially with a soaked sketchbook, but it was easy to clean, and wasn’t worth yelling at another human about.

After the spill, I ended up chatting with the bar tender. She opened up and was really friendly. We talked about school and art and coffee, and she was a lot more relaxed. When I left, I wondered how often this woman had to deal with rude customers. I know from personal experience that the food service industry is not the most fun job. Whenever you are short with a stranger, it could effect them for the rest of their day. Sometimes we forget that other people have the same feelings that we do; they have good days and bad days. I’m sure you’ve had a day where someone ruined it by a mean comment. You don’t know how other people’s lives are going. A cashier might be going slow because they are experiencing a lot of physical pain. A waiter might be forgetful because they have a lot going on in their mind. There are many times in life where you have the choice to give people grace or tear them down.

My encounter with the coffee lady was a short part of my day, but days after it I’m still thinking about it. I hope that next time you deal with a difficult situation with a stranger that you’ll realize that you aren’t the only one who has bad days. Maybe they’re having a rough time, and you can be the person to brighten it.